American Idol Finale Results: The Live-Blog

May 20, 2009

The only intrigue raised by last night’s uneventful competition night of the finale was how in the world Cathy Dennis, who wrote the wonderful “Toxic” and “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” collaborated with Kara DioGuardi on the awful new Idol winner’s anthem, “No Boundaries.” Winners’ songs are not known for being great works of music or poetry, that’s true, but this one will go down in history not only as the song that actually encouraged pegging (“You can go deeper”), but solidified Kara’s place as the most useless (songwriter and) ploy for ratings this show has ever attempted.

Tonight’s final results is a whopping two hours long, in which we will get to hear all the losers sing once more. If that doesn’t hold us over til the Season 8 tour, nothing will. At 10:15 or so, we will learn whether Kris Allen or Adam Lambert takes the crown, but by then, you probably won’t care either way.

8:00pm. Oh no! The Idol’s are dead and in heaven! Or just in all white, with fuzzy bright lighting.

8:02. Kimberly Locke. Janice Dickinson.

8:03. Introducing the judges with soundbytes from the season. I don’t know if it’s such a good idea to point how inane their comments are. Randy (in a giant red bowtie): “For you, for me, for you, for me.” Patronizing Kara: “Sweetie, honey, no sweetie.” For Paula, they just play a bunch of long words she doesn’t know how to use properly in a sentence. And Simon: “What? Sorry?”

8:06. Carrie Underwood in hot pink. Here are the boys, whose mics are not on during Ryan’s pointless interview: Nervous? Excited?

8:07. Live reporting from some Long Island clubber based in Conway, Arkansas. She tries to interview a 2-year-old. Carly Smithson is reporting from San Diego.

8:09. The Top 13 singing “So What” (Pink). Everyone in white. Allison rubs her crotch in the camera. They still try to make Jasmine Murray a pop star by giving her some godawful notes to riff on. Please, let go of this one.

8:15. David Cook! Is he gonna sing that wonderful song from last year? That was a good song, Kara. Just wanna point out that David definitely experimented with guyliner last year. Adam’s not the first, k? Anyway, David sings some ballady thing, with long-haired pianist and drummers shaking their shags mid-way through while he howls. Not bad, not bad. David and Ryan embrace, and Ryan alludes to David’s tough times lately (his brother died). And if you download the performance from iTunes, the proceeds will go to cancer research.

8:20. Justin Guarini? Do they still invite him?

8:20. Golden Idol Awards. It’s the “we have two hours to kill” section of the program, when they award terrible fake auditions. Super bass Elijah Scarlett. Horse-face diseased Dean Anthony Bradford. And… Norman Gentle!!! Guess who the winner is. He comes up to accept his award as his real-life alter ego Nick Mitchell. He thanks Steve Martin, Martin Short, Whoopi Goldberg, then takes off his clothes to reveal Norman Gentle-wear and does an excerpt of “And I Am Telling You.” Wait, and who said Adam Lambert was gay? He’s got nothing on this guy.

8:26. The first of many many duets tonight is Queen Latifah with Lil Rounds! Sorry, Queen. Ooh, but she looks beautiful! (Queen, not Lil.) Black body-suit. Lil looks pretty good too, except minuscule when she stands next to Latifah. But if Lil performed like this when she was still in competition, she would have done a lot better.

8:31. Oh my god, we are only half an hour in.

8:34. Anoop Desai starts off “I’m Yours.” Wasn’t this the first group-sing of the year? Alexis Grace joins him. And Jason Mraz is actually here, who’s super tan and creepy. And looks like he had an eye lift. The other Idols show up to sing backup.

8:36. “The Journey of Kris Allen.” Which is exactly what it sounds like.

8:38. Kris duets with Keith Urban, singing “I Wanna Kiss a Girl.”

8:45. The girls get together for rendition of “Glamorous,” mistakenly kicked off by Megan Joy and then Jasmine Murray. Seriously, two of the worst singers ever to grace this stage. A 60-year-old woman introduces Fergie–or was that Allison. Fergie’s a brunette, and she’s singing that other song she has that’s not “London Bridge.” Then the rest of the Black Eyed Peas come out. Technical difficulties! Or they censored Fergie when she was about to say something that sounds like “faggot.”

8:52. Who gets the award for Best Attitude? Bikini Girl, Alexis Cohen, Tiffany Shedd. And here’s Katrina Darrell, in a bikini, and in way better shape. Did she get implants? Wow. Ryan: “I was gonna ask you what’s new, but I think I know.” She sings. Why why why. Oh, but then Kara comes out to upstage her! And next to Bikini Girl, in a smart conservative suit-type dress, she truly is above it all. Till she rips open her dress and shows us her own buff stuff. Ok, Kara can stay on this show.

9:01. Allison Iraheta gets to duet with Cyndi Lauper! “Time After Time.” What a funny pairing–a teenager who sings like a 50-year-old, and a 50-year-old who sings like a child. Cyndi goes into a musical trance toward the end, but overall, really sweet.

9:04. Kris Allen’s parents are interviewed by Ryan, and they have perfectly rehearsed statements at the ready about being proud and having fun and all that. Next an interview of Adam’s parents. Next to them, a boy is also standing, but the camera cuts him out quickly.

9:05. Danny Gokey is singing “Hello.” But that’s David Cook’s song! Wtf. Some pitch problems. Then he introduces Lionel Richie for a weird reggae duet.

9:15. “Adam Lambert’s Journey.” He’s gonna sing. Who will they pair him with? Omigosh he’s wearing black wings. Or just out-of-control shoulder pads. Or Epcot Center. Can’t figure out the song, but a lyric: “Me and the boys will be playing all night.” And now they bring out Kiss. Oh my god this is amazing. The stage is on fire. They make Adam’s outfit, which includes silver 7-inch platform space shoes, look subdued. And they make Adam’s weird tongue sticking out habit not so quirky after all. You know he wants a painted face, though. It’s really only a lateral move–he already has a lot of base on. Oh my god, that guy really just smashed his guitar. I didn’t know people still did that.

9:26. Ooh another song I can do on Guitar Hero! Santana’s here to do “Black Magic Woman.” Is it the real Santana? I missed the introduction. Matt Giraud sings along. Then it becomes “Smooth” and Adam Lambert, Jorge Nunez, Kris…ok all the boys sing and do vaguely Latin dance steps.The girls join in.

9:29. The final Ford music video. The two finalists are the voices, but all the Idols make cameos from cut footage from the previous 12 videos. Then a video of David Cook “surprising” Adam and Kris with new Ford Fusions. It’s a Hybrid, nice.

9:39. Another group sing. All boys. “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy.” Adam caps it off with a wail, then welcomes Rod Stewart, who is beamed up ala Star Trek. He shuffles out onto stage like an old man, and sings “Maggie Mae.” He has had that same haircut for 30 years. It’s as old as the jacket he’s got on. Oh my god, Rod Stewart is so very, seriously old.

9:45. Award for Outstanding Female. A few unmemorable bad singers, and then Tatiana del Toro. Love her. She storms the stage, steals the statue from Ryan, and sings “Saving All My Love” as she’s ushered away by security. She breaks free and continues, to be cut off for a commercial. If that wasn’t (very well) staged, it would be devastating, but I’m glad to see Tatiana can participate in a joke.

9:49. So, are the results coming? There’s technically only 10 minutes left, but Ryan promised they’d go overtime last night. So I’m wagering there’s another eight duets before I can close this baby down.

9:53. Just one more duet. Supposedly. It’s Adam and Kris on Queen’s “We Are The Champions.” You know, there hasn’t been nearly enough Queen on this season. Michael Johns used up all the rights last year I guess. Brian May, the guitarist, joins them, along with a bunch of people who are not the other Idols. Everyone’s waving their arms.

9:56. Alright, Californians, you ready for the results?

10:00. It’s time. After Simon weighs in: “I don’t normally mean this, but I thought you were both brilliant.” A guy comes out with an envelope with the certified results. A world record of nearly 100 million votes.

10:02. The winner of American Idol is Kris Allen. Well, my mom predicted it, so props to her. Fireworks in Conway. Ryan: “You are superstar, bro.” “KRIS” blinks on all the screens. Kris says Adam deserves it. He gets a trophy–that’s new. He does not seem that happy. He seems to feel really bad that he won. And now, going deeper than ever, it’s Kris Allen singing Kara’s monstrosity, “No Boundaries.”

10:07. And with that, a long, long season of American Idol is complete.